If and when I have a thought, and have ten minutes in the office, I might write mildly diverting thoughts here: about new media in real life, about the web, about the future. But mostly, I think, I'll just wiffle about nothing.

Now, How Buildings Learn must be my all-time favourite TV show. It literally changed the way I think, and led on to me taking a masters in TV production to learn simple DV skills. It also influenced my choice of career - working for the web at the BBC lets me utilise my many fragmentary technical skills - such as solo DV shooting, editing etc, but put them into a bigger context. Or at least, a bigger hands on context than I would have got as a secretary...

I'm a great beleiver in the code in a website being as elegant as the visible surface. I think it's part of my training in fine art - especially print making - that's left me with a desire to make 'well made' things. I've never been as shocked as when I discovered that the most talented (and highest graded) sculptor in my year at college didn't know how to bend a right angle in a piece of wire.

I'm constantly shocked that whenever I'm looking at hiring people to work on the site, people question me when I stipulate that my editorial staff should be comfortable working in HTML. It's breathtaking - I simply can't understand why someone who has been working on websites for several years wouldn't have a rudimentary grasp of good practice in terms of folder structures, image compression etc. It's the equivalent of that wire bending when you find someone who is confused by tables after several years in the trade.

So, the rather long winded point I'm making is to do with professional pride. Making buildings that are adaptable - and websites that are rational - stems from the craftsman's pride, not the professional's ego. It's a case of ensuring that you are doing your current job to the best of your ability, and with a clear understanding of the limitations and advantages of your substrate. Too many people seem to carry on doing things as a stepping stone - this is nearly what I want to do, but not quite, so I'll do it halfheartedly. Why not throw yourself into it, and wring every last drop of learning out of what you're doing? Take pride in your work and you will do it well - and thus progress quicker.

I think the beauty of taking the photographs to document the hidden parts of the building is partly because it enables future users of your building to maintain it better. But it's also an absoulute testament to a job well done. The kind of builders that use empty coke cans to space the plasterboard walls in Barratt homes are not the kind of builders that I'd want working on my house; they're also not the kind of builders that would be documenting the underlying structure of their work.

They are pretty ingenious, though - it just happens that a coke can is _exactly_ the right size to space the walls; and there are lots of them to be reused on a site.

Am having a lot of thoughts at the moment about how you could make a WMP/iTunes type application for monitoring books.

Now, kinda hard, as books are, well, big blocks of printed paper, and I'm not giving them up for anything.

But the ISBN number would seem to be the best way of tracking a book - it's a UID.

So... what would happen if you could create a google-like text ads service that looked at the metadata of whatever page (or mp3) you were looking at (listening to) and reccomended you an honest to goodness ink and tree book on the subject?

And then also looked at clickthroughs etc to relate peoples likes and dislikes.

I want an app that marries my record collection, my bookshelf, my browsing habits and my amazon ratings, and uses it to dispense timely reccomendations to me.

Well, I sort of do, only I would end up bankrupt.

What would happen, too, if it lived on your mobile? So you could tap in an ISBN in a bookshop and get it added to your system?

About Me

Portly noo-meejah product manager with a liking for gin and ladies. Oh, and a boy. Just the one.
Fond of eating,
Prone to being too serious,
Optimistic (mostly),
Solipsistic,
Nowhere near as interesting as you might think,
A wobbly speller (sorry).